


All In Ones And Zeros

by Sashataakheru



Category: The Chaser RPF
Genre: Coding, Community: dailyprompt, Gen, Prompt Fic, Snippets, nerds, the internet is terrible, unfinished wips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 02:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9695291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sashataakheru/pseuds/Sashataakheru
Summary: This is an unfinished fill for a seven-year-old dailyprompt prompt, 'all in ones and zeros'. In it, the Chaser boys are total nerds, and Andrew gets sucked into the Internet again. It makes no sense, and has no ending. Nevertheless, it exists.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt reference: [all in ones and zeros](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/76765.html)
> 
> It was even one of my prompts, and I still didn't end up finishing it gfdi.

Andrew was somewhat bored. He'd been watching Charles tinkering with his computer for hours, and nothing seemed to have been achieved, apart from various bits of computer parts that had been strewn all over the place. Andrew had learned not to disturb Charles when he was like this, and had mostly kept to himself. However, it was going on 4am now and Andrew desperately wanted sleep. He sat on the floor, flicking tiny bolts across the carpet. Charles was lying under his desk, fidling around with something Andrew couldn't see.

"Charles. You done yet? I might fall asleep here if you're not done soon," Andrew said, flicking a bolt at Charles. He leant back against the wall and tried to keep his eyes from closing.

"Hmm, nearly done," Charles muttered, his voice muffled.

"You said that four hours ago," Andrew said.

"This time I really mean it. Now, grab me that blue cable," Charles said.

Andrew looked around, trying to locate said blue cable. "Umm, not seeing a blue cable, Charles. I've got a red one, and a white one, and I think there's a black one over by the window, but no blue one."

Charles extracted himself from under his desk and surveyed the room. "It was right here. You didn't move it, did you?" 

"I haven't touched anything. I don't recall seeing a blue cable anywhere," Andrew said.

Charles stood and looked around, searching amongst the wreckage on the desk and on the shelves, anywhere that might hide a blue cable. Andrew stayed where he was, happy to wait for Charles to finish searching. He wouldn't mind if he closed his eyes, just for a second. No, not at all. It wasn't like he was tired, and he wasn't going to sleep, but that wasn't the point. He just had to shut his eyes, just for a second, and then he'd totall-

Andrew had little time to finish that thought before he fell asleep. He saw a bright flash of white light before his closed eyes and he felt himself falling. Charles saw the same flash of light and turned to see Andrew vanish into thin air. The search for the blue cable was suddenly not as important.

"Okay, I really am this close to falling asleep. I'm hallucinating. Or something," Charles said.

He approached the spot where Andrew had been sitting and saw a blue cable. Little shit had been sitting on it the whole time, Charles thought. As he picked it up, it shocked him and he dropped it instantly, stepping back as he wondered what on earth was going on. 

"Nnnott tttthiiissss ttttiimmmeee hhhee'sss mmmiiinnneeeeee..."

The voice that came from the cable sounded like a snake with a sore throat, and to be quite honest, sounded just a little bit creepy. He was getting a strange sense of deja vu. Hadn't he done this all before? 

"Did you just suck Andrew into the internet again? Really? That is terribly unoriginal of you," Charles said.

The cable appeared to glare at him before vanishing. Charles didn't have time to grab it before it disappeared, leaving him standing alone in his room, surrounded by junk. He sighed in annoyance.

"And I still haven't got the stupid thing working. Fuck you, stupid blue cable. I'll have to fix it before I can even try and find him. What a fucking nightmare," Charles said.

He wasted no time in continuing the repair job, making sure his equipment was working properly. The lasers were only prototypes, but he was confident they at least would work. They were designed to speed up downloads, because Charles was an impatient bastard. It was getting the interface right between the lasers themselves and the computers that would run them that was going much slower, and Charles wasn't entirely sure he had it right. At a loss as to what to do, he resorted to using his laptop, trying to see if there was a way to do it that would be quicker and easier than the way he was currently doing things. 

Google, however, was not being helpful. Every second link was a malware warning, and Charles wanted to throw Google across the room and bash it into working properly. Taking a moment to think, an idea came to him and he opened a program that had sat unused on his desktop for far too long. He smiled and began typing. He would not be beaten.

* * *

Andrew could see nothing but darkness. He felt like he was still falling, but it was hard to tell. There was nothing to indicate where he was, or which direction was up. All he saw around him was darkness. It was an unusual darkness too, more ... artificial than he felt it should be. He reached out to it and found no solid wall. He turned to look below him and saw something rushing up to greet him, something blue and snake-like. If Andrew had any way to escape, he'd have taken it. The blue snake merely wrapped itself around him, holding him tight. 

"Oh, you are not getting away from me this time. Your ginger friend will not be able to save you. This is the dark side of the internet. He'll never find you here," the blue snake hissed in his ear. 

"I bet he will. Charles is smart like that," Andrew said, sounding braver than he felt.

The snake made a noise that could've been said to be a laugh. It spoke no more and Andrew felt himself moving again, as if the snake was taking him somewhere else. Andrew looked up again and saw a murky grey 'ceiling' that looked a lot like water. It looked brighter beyond that barrier. Perhaps that was the good side of the internet. If he could just get there, he might be able to get Charles to find him. He was slowly beginning to remember what had happened last time he'd been in the Internet and what he'd done. This darknet, however, was not something he had any exprience with and it seemed to behave in totally different ways. It seemed much smaller, and much more anonymous. Who was even here and would he have any way of finding out?

Andrew was left with too many unanswered questions as the snake took him somewhere else. Andrew was hardly surprised it was a cage, though it was a little bigger than he anticipated. The snake left him there and Andrew had little to do but sit there and wait. He didn't have the sort of skills Charles had that might get him out of here. The code that the cage was made of might as well be gibberish for all Andrew knew.

* * *

Charles was too busy sorting through IP logs to notice the sun was rising. He'd managed to find a few clues as to Andrew's whereabouts but getting there was not as simple as he had hoped. He had closed in on a few anonymous clusters on Freenet, and now it was all a matter of breaking into them to find Andrew. He'd also managed to get his computers fixed and the lasers worked perfectly. Using another not-dangerous blue cable, he was busy rewriting the program he'd designed for the lasers to make them into the sort of things that would blow these anonymous clusters to pieces, though hopefully they would leave Andrew intact. 

"You do know that's not going to work, yeah?" 

Charles was not expecting to hear another voice, especially one that wasn't Andrew's. He looked behind him and saw Craig leaning against the doorframe. "What on earth are you doing here, and what would you know about code anyway?" 

"You never bothered to bloody ask me about code, so it's hardly my fault you think I can't do this stuff. Here, lemme see what you're doing. Where's Andrew anyway?" Craig said, sitting down beside him.

"Oh, um, in the Internet again. Like, he got sucked in again. Stupid idiot," Charles said.

"Well, you're hardly going to find him by blasting lasers all over the place. Stealth is what you need, so they won't even know you're there," Craig said, taking the laptop from him as he redid Charles' program. "You call this code, Firth? I've seen Andrew's room tidier than this." 

Charles scowled and ignored him. He didn't think Craig deserved a reply.

* * *

Andrew looked up in surprise as he saw the old Play School Rocket Clock appear before him, outside the cage. It glowed brightly, though there was nothing around for it to light up, so the darkness was still as dark as ever. The bars of the cage hissed at the light; as preposterous as it sounded, it was the only way Andrew would have described it. 

"Uhh, should I assume your appearance is a good thing or not?" Andrew said, referring to the clock.

"Get in the goddamn rocket, Hansen," came a voice that sounded particularly like Craig's.

"Is that you, Craig? Why is the Rocket Clock here anyway? You gonna get me out of here?" Andrew said.

"Yeah, I'm here to save you, princess, cos Charles can't code for shit. Get in the rocket already," Craig said.

Andrew sat back. "I would, but I'm sitting in a very nice cage at the moment. Feel free to set me free if you like."

"What kind of cage?" 

"I don't know. It's got bars and I can't get out. It's a cage." 

"You really are no help at all."

Andrew tried not to laugh at the barely audible sigh he heard from the clock. 

"Okay, I've had a look at it and it seems to be..."

That was about all Andrew understood before Craig started talking gibberish. He didn't care what it was, he just wanted to get out.


End file.
